Video: Correcting distortion

In this movie, we are going to be working on the file shape.psd. Let's go ahead and double-click that one to open it up. I have to go to Full Screen View mode. Now, with this photograph, what I want to do is talk a little bit about using a filter in a non-traditional way in order to enhance a portrait. Now with this particular photograph, I'm pretty close to the person, so there is a little bit of distortion. Now you may not notice that initially, but then after a second glance you are going to start to see it. So in order to fix this we can use a number of different techniques. This is a real quick and easy technique that you can use. Select your Background layer, press Command J on a Mac/Ctrl+J on a PC. And then go ahead and name this new layer shape, because we are really going to be changing the shape of the overall face. Next, we are going to navigate to our Filter pulldown menu, we are going to choose Distort and then Lens Correction.

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Correcting distortion

In this movie, we are going to be working on the file shape.psd. Let's go aheadand double-click that one to open it up. I have to go to Full Screen View mode.Now, with this photograph, what I want to do is talk a little bit about using afilter in a non-traditional way in order to enhance a portrait.Now with this particular photograph, I'm pretty close to the person, so thereis a little bit of distortion. Now you may not notice that initially, but thenafter a second glance you are going to start to see it. So in order to fix thiswe can use a number of different techniques. This is a real quick and easytechnique that you can use.Select your Background layer, press Command J on a Mac/Ctrl+J on a PC. Andthen go ahead and name this new layer shape, because we are really going to bechanging the shape of the overall face. Next, we are going to navigate to ourFilter pulldown menu, we are going to choose Distort and then Lens Correction.

Now the main reason why you don't want to use this Filter is in order tocorrect problems that you have with lenses. Now initially this filter wasdesigned for architectural photographers but you can use it on your peoplephotographs as well. Here is what I'm going to do. I'm simply going to reducesome of that distortion.Now if I go the other way this will look kind of funny and goofy and if I gotoo far it will be overkill. And I just want to reduce some of that distortion.So I'm going to go ahead and bring this down just a bit, it's a prettysignificant change. So let's click OK.Now the next thing that I need to do is turn off my Background layer. So I cansee where this image was changed grab the Marquee tool. I'm going to go aheadand click and drag this Marquee tool out and I'm going to get this to thefurthest edges of my Images and next choose Image and then Crop.

Now once I have cropped this image, I need to Deselect, I can do that by goingto Select > Deselect or pressing Command D on Mac, Ctrl+D on a PC. All right,well my crop wasn't quite perfect, so I'll go ahead and make another Marqueeselection and choose Image > Crop. I just want to get that just right and thenCommand D on a Mac/Ctrl+D on a PC.Let's zoom in on this Photograph, just a bit, so we can see it and here is ourbefore and then after. Now let's zoom out because sometimes stepping back helpsas well. Before and after.The second photo is much more flattering. Now, in this case, I actually usedthat distort filter pretty high. You want to be really careful; you don't wantto go too high because it can diminish the overall sharpness of your photo. Butin this case because I'm sizing it down. It's still going to look good.

Also keep in mind that you want to make real subtle adjustments when you areusing that filter, but as you can see here it does make for a much moreflattering photograph.

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Learn by watching, listening, and doing! Exercise files are the same files the author uses in the course, so you can download them and follow along. Exercise files are available with all Premium memberships.
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